The Taken (12 page)

She was curled up in one of the Granville’s oversized comfy armchairs and the twins were stretched out on the carpet in front of her on beanbag cushions. Not wanting to draw attention to herself, not until she had something she could actually show them at any rate, she quietly drew the phone out. The screen shone brightly.

New Text Message

She pushed the open button.

If you tell he will die

She read it twice before the cold chill settled in her 113

young stomach. Once again the screen was empty of a battery reading or signal bars and there was no sender id. No name, no number. Getting up from her seat, she walked as casually as she could out into the hall and took refuge in the downstairs bathroom. Lowering the lid, she sat on the toilet seat, feeling its cool surface through her jeans, making her skin pimple. Her hand moved over the buttons and sent just one word:

Who?

This time the message sign didn’t even come up, just the words, taunting her from the green screen.

Look and see.

The screen darkened for a moment, then flickered to life, the colors on the film bright, made more eerie by the silence. A blonde girl that looked younger than her was smiling at the camera and waving, her curls blowing out behind her head in the wind. It seemed like she was standing in the woods somewhere, but it seemed darker than it should have been and Laura couldn’t figure out if that and the strange greenish tinge to the gloom was because of the phone or just the madness of these messages that shouldn’t be coming through anyway.

The little girl—is that Melanie?—pointed to her left, and the camera panned to the left, and Laura had to put her hand to her mouth to stop herself from crying out. Peter’s yellow coat was immediately recognizable, as was his blond hair and his sweet face, all crumpled and crying. Two older children, one boy who seemed to be wearing a school sweater and jeans, his glasses glinting even in the sickly gloom, and a girl in an old-fashioned pinafore dress, were holding each of his arms and smiling while someone else, Laura couldn’t see who, threw small rocks at him. Peter squirmed as

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they hit his small body and Laura could see that he was crying out, confused and terrified by the pain, but the two children kept a firm hold on him.

The camera moved back to Melanie, who was still smiling, then the screen returned to an open text message. Whoever the girl was, she obviously wanted Laura to say something. And Laura knew what it was.

What do you want?

She could feel the two cookies she’d eaten gurgling and fighting to rise as bile from her stomach. This was stupid and crazy. Why would those kids have taken Peter? Why did he go with them? New words flashed up.

I want you to play with me.

Laura stared.

And you’ll let Petey go?

Not if you tell. Bad things happen when you tell.

The world felt blurry at the edges and she couldn’t really believe she was having this conversation.

Where are you?

The woods. Come now.

Where in the woods?

We’ll find you. We want to play.

The phone went dead. Lights out, power off, and for a full minute Laura just stared at it. Part of her almost didn’t believe the last few minutes had happened, but the trembling in her hands and the image burned into her eyes of little Petey crying as rocks were thrown at him told her otherwise. This was crazy and weird but it was happening.

Fighting the urge to run in a panic to Emma Granville, she stood on shaky legs, lifted the lid and flushed. There was only one thing she could do, and 115

that was go out in the woods and find Pete. Whoever these kids were, they wouldn’t know the local area as well as she did, and once she’d found the little boy she’d get away from them and come and tell her mum. She didn’t know how they’d got her phone to work, but it was probably some bluetooth connection or something new that hadn’t worked its way down into the country yet.

Taking a deep breath, she went back to the lounge. Jimmy squirmed on his old cushion. “You okay?”

“No, I don’t feel too well. I think I’ll go home.”

Jenny sat up. “Yeah, you look a bit pale. Did it just come on?”

“Yeah. I’ll just go and grab my coat. I’ll call you later.”

“Okay. Hope you feel better.”

Laura tried her best at a weak smile, then turned her back on them, taking the stairs two at a time to fetch her coat. Jimmy’s bed was empty, dashing her vague hope that Peter would be sitting hunched over the Etch-a-Sketch where they’d left him and this was all some kind of weird trick. She could just about make out the small dent in the covers where he had been sitting. This was real. He was gone. She stared out the window for a moment, the trees a blur in the rain, before heading back down the stairs and out into the storm.

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Paul trudged carefully across the steep cobbled road, having left Simon and Alex warming up in The Rock with large glasses of red wine and a quiet but lucid Mary. They’d told him what they’d found in the vicar’s office and he’d agreed that it didn’t sound too much like a suicide to him, either. They’d stared at him as if hoping he could shed some light on it, but he didn’t have any more of a clue what was going on than they did. All he knew was that Melanie Parr was long gone; maybe someone was playing tricks on them and one of those tricks had gone badly wrong with Reverend Barker. He didn’t see the point in sharing what he remembered of the girl unless he had to. And as far as he was concerned, at the moment he didn’t have to. Some memories were best left buried in the past where they belonged.

He paused, his eyes for a moment distracted by some movement in the gray air ahead of him. For a second he thought he saw a small group of children 118

playing ring-a-ring-of-roses, but then, as he blinked, they’d gone. He stared into the rain, but there was nothing there but the uneven walls of the stone cottages. One still had a large black bin out in front from whenever the garbage men came. Maybe that’s what he’d seen. Great. Now it wasn’t just Mary seeing things, it was him too. Maybe it was something in the water. He blinked again, rain getting in his eyes. Or something in this bloody storm, which seemed to be getting worse rather than better. Still, an hour outside at most and then he’d be back in the warm, where he pretty much intended to stay until the rain stopped. Above his head the sky growled, but no lightning flashed. At least that was something.

Simon had offered to come back out and help him knock on doors to let people know to meet in the pub at four, but Paul persuaded him against it, saying that his friend needed to dry out and that there weren’t exactly hundreds of houses to go to. It was a small white lie. Paul may have moved into the city, but he still understood country people. They were used to taking care of themselves. It was in their blood after generations of hard living, of working the fields and animals of the farms with no one but family on which to rely. They wouldn’t like having some city man they didn’t know telling them what to do. Some of them would probably even have a problem with him. He had moved away, after all.

Still, he thought as he looked up through the streaks of water to the lit-up windows of the gray stone building closest to him, he shouldn’t have a problem here. He’d known Phil and Kay Chambers forever; from long before Kay Keeler ever considered kissing a boy, let

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alone becoming Phil Chambers’s wife. They were two of the guests that should have been coming to his party the previous night and he’d been looking forward to seeing them again. The primary school days at Wiwy Local School were a long time past.

Not finding a bell through the gloom, he knocked loudly, just as he’d done as a boy. Phil’s family had lived in this house for generations. His mum had been a schoolteacher and his dad worked with the dairy farms, just as his dad had before him. Phil may have broken the mold by becoming an accountant, but he still loved the country life and spent most of his summer weekends out fishing on the quiet river. It wasn’t the life for Paul, but he could understand why his friend had chosen to stay. The country got into some people’s blood and they’d never be able to shake it out.

With no answer coming, he lowered his head and peered through the letter box.

“Kay? Are you in there?” His ear pressed to the small gap, he was sure he heard laughter coming back at him. Like a child’s laughter. “Laura? It’s Paul. Can you answer the door?” Warm rain trickled into his mouth.

Waiting for Laura to come downstairs, he felt slightly confused. Where was Kay?

She surely wouldn’t have gone out anywhere with the weather like this. Stepping back, he stared at the house. All the lights were on. Maybe Laura had friends over. The seconds ticked by, but the door didn’t open. What was she doing?

Something in his peripheral vision snagged his attention, and he paused for a moment. What was that? The long low window at the front of the house was steamed up as if something were being boiled close to it on the other side. That couldn’t be though, because

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Paul knew that room was the lounge. What were Laura and her friends doing in there? Stepping closer, trying to peer through, he realized that letters had been drawn on the fogged-up glass. What the hell did that say? Irritated, he pushed the rain out of his eyes and stared.

Come inside, Paul. Let’s play fishing with Kay What the hell were Laura and her friends doing in there? This wasn’t funny. This wasn’t funny at all. On top of everything else that had gone on over the past twenty-four hours, he really didn’t need this shit from kids. He hadn’t taken shit from kids since he was one, and even then it was only Melanie that had scared him. He pushed the thought of her from his head. She was gone. Dead and gone a long time ago, and good riddance to bad rubbish. If Laura Chambers and her friend were behind what happened to Mary and the reverend, then he was going to kill them himself. Even in his anger, the thought didn’t sit right. She’s a good kid. You know that. Why would she be doing this? Another thought chilled him. Maybe Laura wasn’t there. Maybe it was someone else. But who? And why?

Turning back to the doorway, he raised his hand to knock again, but as he made contact with the wood, it swung away from him. The door was open. Surely it had been locked a moment ago. The bright hallway was a relief after the dullness of the storm, and letting his anger have more reign than the slight nervousness that nibbled at his insides, he stepped inside.

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A sound. Someone downstairs. Is she dreaming? Everything seems swimmy inside, nothing tenuous, yet everything so horribly real in the blackness. Her head lifts slowly as she comes around, her mind fuzzy and groggy. What happened?

Where is she? She tries to open her mouth, but can’t, forcing her breathing faster from her nose, a small spray of mucus escaping. She feels it settle on her hot cheeks around the plastic stretched over her lips. Tape? Why is there tape on her mouth? Hazy memories of sitting down to read her book. Then she’d heard something. Gone upstairs. There were children up there. Melanie had been up there, even though she couldn’t be because Melanie was long gone, and there is no Catcher Man, everyone knows that. Had she fallen? Her brain aches trying to think. Yes, yes, she’d tumbled down the stairs. Maybe she is still there. As she forces herself awake, panic sets in. Whatever this is, it isn’t a dream. Or a nightmare.

“Kay? Laura? Anyone home?”

Hearing her name being called from the depths of the house, her eyes drift open and she tries desperately to hold her head up, not let it loll backward or forward as it is so keen to do. She must concentrate. Focus. Where is she? Fear tingles through her almost conscious being. For a moment she isn’t sure of exactly where she is as her eyes move around the room. It’s her bedroom, she’s sure of it, she can see her dressing gown hanging from the back of the door, but somehow it all seems different. Not seen from this angle before.

A low moan growls in her chest, her heart beating faster as alertness returns.

Her arms and fingers are numb, her wrists burning above her. The big double bed 122

has been pushed to the wall at one side, leaving the space where she hangs from the beam now free from clutter. Rolling her eyes upward, she sees the rope tied tightly, trussing her arms, her hands, almost alien to her, swollen and blue.

She tries to move them and can’t. She feels detached, apart from herself, from these hands that won’t do as they’re told.

“Kay?”

The voice is slightly closer, she thinks in the kitchen, and for a moment her heart stops with fear, her eyes flashing to the door, to whoever is on the other side, before a drip of recognition cools her down. Paul. It’s Paul. Somehow Paul is in the house. He can help her, he can untie her, he can…

Her excitement has made her wriggle slightly and pain taps gleefully at her insides, the numbness fading. There is cold, deep cold buried within, and she senses that something is horribly, horribly wrong and that Paul isn’t going to be able to help her, whatever he does. Slowly, slowly she lowers her trembling eyes, not wanting to, oh god, not wanting to, but she has to see, she has to see if she is hurt.

Her breath is coming rapidly from behind the tape, the sound almost a snort, and tears form at the corner of her eyes as she looks, but there is too much to see, too much to take in. She sees where the line of her shorts was when she lay in the garden the day before yesterday, the tan developing as nicely as she’d hoped it would, and somewhere in her head she thinks wildly that next time she will be braver and just take all her clothes off, it’s not as if anyone could see over the high wall and Phil would love it, not that they’d ever really had a problem keeping up the excitement in their

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marriage. She sees where she’s put a few pounds on her hips at that place where all men love it and all women want to look like boys, but she’ll lose it by the end of the summer. … And then she sees, she can’t help but see the tape, the strips of white surgical tape that cover her belly, some of the edges pink, pink with her blood, where it’s oozing from her, and the sobs start to come heavier.